Are Chinese students paying too much studying in Australia?

According to a recent HSBC report, the cost of study in Australia is higher than in any other country such as the US and UK. The total cost for international study in Australia, including annual fees and cost of living, is calculated at USD 42,000 a year. Also, Australia has the most proportion of international students—about 20 percent of the country’s higher education enrolments are international, compared to the global average of about 7 percent. Among those, Chinese students have a large proportion.

The universities in Australia publish both the academic and International students’ fee on the school website, including the University of Sydney. In the website, take the Master of Commence as an example, which has a large proportion of Chinese students, we can see the study fee for International students is $40,000.00 per year, compared to the academic student fee which is $29,500.00 per year. Even so, the university increases the International tuition fee every year.

According to Australian dollar rate, there is bad news for Chinese students, which means that Chinese students are now likely to get less Australian dollars in exchange for their home currency.

So in this article, I want to see whether Chinese students are paying too much studying in Australia. This topic is of relevance for International students especially Chinese students in Australia that it is a major finance issue that takes the importance of students’ lives and study. It is an educational issue and highly discussed in the recent years with the popularity of studying abroad.

I plan to interview two Chinese students who are studying in the University of Sydney, Kristy and Lily. Kristy has been studying in Sydney for about seven years. She went to Sydney when she was a high school student, and now she is about to get her master diploma. By contrast, Lily has been in Sydney for only two months.

I would like to focus on their life stories. I will ask them how much they have to pay every semester and where the tuition fee comes from—earned by themselves or given by their parents. I would also feature how they feel about the tuition fee, whether it is a burden to their family. Also, I will ask them about their family situation, what does it mean to their family for spending about AU $10,000 every year.

After telling the stories of Kristy and Lily, researches about the current International tuition fee of the popular courses will be quoted from the data In the USYD website. I will compare the International tuition fee with the academic tuition fee. Besides this, Australian scholarship and fellowship will be looked into, especially the scholarship for Chinese students, such as how do they apply for the scholarship, what are the limits, and the amount of the scholarship.

The news story will be suitable to the education websites such as Top Universities and Study in Australia because it can give the main information that are relevant to the Chinese students who are going to study in Australia.

3 thoughts on “Are Chinese students paying too much studying in Australia?”

I think it’s great that you’re including a statistical framework as well as getting two different angles from actual students – this will really add dimension to your story. Are both Kristy and Lily international students or is Kristy domestic?

One thing you might want to pay attention to when writing the piece is terminology: you’ve used the word ”academic” where I believe you want to be using ”domestic”, ie when talking about domestic vs international students or fees.

Overall I think you’ve chosen a really good, interesting topic and have planned to cover it in a solid way.

Thank you so much Laura! It’s my mistake to use the wrong word “academic“ where I want to use the word “domestic”. Actually, both Kristy and Lily are international students, the difference between them is how long they have been in Sydney. After reading your comment, I would like to interview a domestic student rather than only post the related data to add more dimension. Thank you again!

As a Chinese international student myself, I’m really looking forward to your analysis.

The use of those stats as comparison and contrast are great to see, especially the cost versus the quality. The views of both Kirsty and Lily will be interesting to read as well, great choice of interviewees because of the difference in duration of their stay.

On that note, I think the use of interview questions is one thing I would be slightly careful on, i.e self earned money in proportion to parents’ bank transfers, nonetheless it would be great to see the correct data on the given topic.

I agree with Laura on the fact that an article on this topic would be a great read, sincerely looking forward to it.